In many wireless communication networks and other mobile networks, the network keeps track of the location of mobile stations, such as mobile telephones, at least on a cell level. In such networks, it is typically also possible to determine the geographical location of the mobile stations, and deliver the geographical location to a requesting entity, according to various well known techniques. For example, the Third Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) and Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) are developing techniques for delivering location information in the context of providing IP-based location services. Information regarding the location of the mobile stations can be utilized for a number of different purposes, such as for routing and charging, as well as for support of location services.
Various service announcements can be transmitted to mobile stations on the basis of a service request of a subscriber in mobile communication systems. Generally, these chargeable services are most often arranged to be provided from outside the actual mobile communication system. By making a call to a required service number or sending a request over the Internet, for example, a mobile subscriber is able to order a selected service announcement to be delivered to the display of the mobile station, for example. Of these individual services, e.g., weather forecast, traffic announcements, local news and other local services, such as taxi ordering and service station announcements and so on are services where the mobile subscriber selects the desired announcement on the basis of the geographical area. The mobile subscriber generally wishes to have the service announcement related to his/her current location which varies because of the mobile nature of the mobile subscriber.
Typically, mobile networks are configured such that an entity, sometimes referred to as a location-based application (LBA), may be co-located or otherwise in communication with a LoCation Services (LCS) client to request the location of a mobile station via a single or periodic request that includes a number of parameters for operations triggered by receipt of the request. With periodic LCS requests, the position of the mobile station may be determined and reported to the LBA/LCS client in a periodic fashion, where the total number of requests, the time interval between requests and one or more other related parameters may be specified to the mobile station beforehand by the LBA/LCS client/position server. If the conditions that were initially used to specify parameters in the location request do not remain the same for the entire duration, however, such periodic location reporting may be inefficient. In other words, it is more realistic that when the conditions at the LBA, for example, change, appropriate parameters in the request would also change. For example, as currently defined by 3GPP2 and the OMA, the periodicity (frequency of reporting the current location) parameter in these requests is constant and cannot be changed unless the current request is torn down and a new request is initiated. In scenarios such as wireless local area network (WLAN)—wide area network (WAN) interworking, it may be beneficial to perform periodic location requests of a mobile station where the time intervals between requests are determined dynamically, based on application specific considerations. Current specifications, however, do not permit efficiently changing parameters when conditions at the LBA require a change in parameters, while processing any location request, whether a periodic location request or a single location request (e.g., single, delayed or deferred location request).